82 
RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 
diversity of additional forms which might be expected by 
research. 
Our knowledge of the native Arachnid and Arachnoid parasites is 
too meagre, as far as the exact determination of species is con- 
cerned, to yet attempt even a preliminary list. 
On a SPECIMEN of CREX CREX , SHOT at RAND WICK, 
NEW SOUTH WALES. 
By Alfred J. North, F.L.S., Assistant in Ornithology. 
Recently Mr. H. Newcombe, Deputy Registrar-General of 
Titles, presented a freshly shot specimen of Crex crex to the 
Trustees of the Australian Museum. The bird was obtained the 
previous day, June 14th, 1893, by Mr. Walter Higgs, who was shoot- 
ing in a scrubby portion of the Rifle Range at Randwick, a well 
known haunt of the Rail idee. It was an adult female, and upon 
dissection the ovaries were found to be fairly developed. This 
species ranges throughout Western Asia, Europe, and the United 
Kingdom, it also occurs in Northern and North-eastern Africa, 
and the late Mr. Gurney records it as common during the summer 
months as far South as Natal, a straggler also being recorded by 
Mr. Ayres from Cape Colony. It occurs in Asia Minor, Arabia, 
and Turkestan, and it is stated by Mr. Seebohm to be common 
as far North and East as the Altai Mountains ; also Dr. Sharpe 
recently records it in a collection of birds from Fao in the Persian 
Gulf, but it is not included either by Hume or Murray in the 
Indian avifauna. Stragglers are recorded by Professor Baird to 
the Eastern coast of the United States, and Dresser, in his Birds of 
Europe, states a specimen was said to have been once obtained 
near Nelson, in New Zealand, but on what authority I know 
not. Sir Walter Buller does not include it in his Birds of New 
Zealand. Previously this species has not been recorded from Aus- 
tralia, and although possessed of great powers of flight, it is hard 
to imagine that the specimen obtained at Randwick, should it 
have succeeded in reaching Northern Australia by the way of 
India, Sumatra, and Java, would still have wandered so much 
farther out of its normal range bv crossing the continent to South- 
eastern Australia. The occurrence of this bird within a few miles 
of Sydney, where a number of foreign birds are frequently brought 
